Cassandra's Revenge
by Rowena Zahnrei
Summary: Cassandra always knew how she'd die...so she had plenty of time to plan the perfect revenge on the man who killed her. An AU story, exploring what might have happened if Lister hadn't found Kochanski quite so fast...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own _Red Dwarf_ or any of the characters. Please don't sue me or steal my story. Thanks!

NOTE: I previously put this story up for April Fool's Day, then took it down a couple weeks later when the total lack of response it received strongly suggested the need for serious tweaking. It's an AU story and somewhat dark, but I hope you like this revised version!

**Cassandra's Revenge**

By Rowena Zahnrei

_It had happened before, and he could make it happen again. It wouldn't take much. A hand-held blowtorch and a small hammer to damage the drive plate—not so it was noticeable, just enough to keep it from closing properly. A few tweaks to the control board's wiring to make sure the radiation warning signal would fail to light. A quick scramble into one of the stasis booths. And that was it. He'd be home free. Back to square one, with all the events of the past three years erased—if not from memory, then at least from existence._

_Security had become rather lax on _Red Dwarf_ since the crew had settled into the understanding that they were alone, separated from their home system by three million years of space and time. Dressed in his new second technician jumpsuit and carrying his box of tools, it was a simple matter for reformed convict and vending machine maintenance operative David Lister to slip past the two engineers on night shift duty and sidle up to the main reactor._

_Over the nearly three and a half years since their resurrection by a swarm of nanobots, the thousand-plus ship's compliment had become less a professional team, and more a community: a huge metal city cruising through deep space. The Captain was like the mayor, his staff the government officials, and the crew were the citizens, working their nine-to-five jobs then spending their evenings at the ship's discos and pubs and shopping centers, just as they would have done back home. Without a company to answer to or a profit margin to maintain, the non-fraternization guidelines that had long governed relations between officers and enlisted crew broke down, leaving them free to get to know each other as people, rather than superiors and subordinates. Relationships started up, even a few marriages were celebrated._

_It was one of those marriages that had brought Lister down to the engine room, intent on his mission of sabotage. He really had no choice. The marriage was wrong, a fluke the universe should never have allowed to happen. It was up to him to sponge it away, to cleanse its cancerous presence from the timeline before it could metastasize._

_He still couldn't get over the fact that he hadn't seen it coming. How could he not have seen it? The entire relationship had developed right under his nose, yet he'd remained as ignorant of the situation as a salamander in a rapidly drying pond. The Cat, Kryten, Holly—even the skutters had known about it before he did. And he'd managed to maintain his ignorance until that day, exactly one year ago. The day the whole sordid affair had been shoved in his face like a rancid cream pie. _

_It was April Fool's Day, and Rimmer had been sorting through the mail…_

To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

So many views...but no reviews? On this story and _Thanks for the Memories_? Is it me?

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><p>"Oh my God, it's come," Rimmer said.<p>

"What's come?"

"I can't open it, Lister," the taller man said, his hands visibly shaking as he held up the thin, official-looking letter. "Do it for me, will you?"

Lister hopped down from his bunk and took the letter, his eyebrows raising as he read the front of the envelope. "Exam scores?" he said. "I didn't know you re-took the astronavigation exam again. What number are you up to now? Nineteen? Twenty-five?"

"Don't waste time, Lister, just open it," Rimmer pleaded, too tense even to get uptight.

Realizing it was no good goading him in this mood, Lister shrugged and ripped the envelope open with his finger.

Rimmer's expression was desperate. "What's it say?"

Lister read it through, then read it through again. He snorted in amusement and flung the neatly typed letter at Rimmer.

"It's a gag," he said. "Someone's playin' an April Fool's joke on you."

But, Rimmer sat ramrod straight, his skin draining of all color as he read the tiny print.

"I passed."

Lister climbed back up to his bunk. "I'm tellin' you, man, it's a gag."

"I really passed."

"You didn't pass anythin'. Someone somewhere's decided to play a joke on you. It's not a real letter."

Rimmer staggered to his feet in a daze, shuffling slowly toward the door like a drunk on the verge of collapse. "I have to go, I have to show her…" He looked up, his lean, ferrety face glowing with a deep, passionate joy. "I passed! I'm an officer! I PASSED!"

Lister rolled his eyes and leaned back on his pillow as he watched Rimmer race from the room, waving his letter like a signal flag.

"Smeghead. He's gonna be crushed," he commented, and tapped his watch.

"Holly?"

The senile computer's balding head faded into view on the watch's small, round screen. "What's up, Dave?"

"If I showed you an envelope, could you trace a letter for me?"

"Sure, I'm game," Holly said.

Lister rolled off his bunk again and snatched up the tattered envelope, holding it in front of Holly's face. "It's addressed to Rimmer," he explained. "A gag, you know? Can you tell me who really sent it, Hol?"

"Jus' give me a mo' an' I'll link up with the mail records," he said. Lister picked up a magazine and settled in for a long wait. Some twenty minutes later, Holly was back with his report.

"It's not a gag," he said without any sort of preamble or introduction.

"What?"

"The letter you asked me to trace," Holly explained. "It's genuine. Sent from the Captain's desk this morning."

"What?" Lister said again. "That can't be right, Hol. When did Rimmer even take that exam?"

"Four weeks ago," the computer said. "When you were away on your last CANARY mission before they let you out of the brig and sent you back here, to your old quarters. They let Arnold take it on his own, without a time limit. Space Corps Directive 4872916-A: Those crew members with a documented history of test-related anxiety must be offered the option of taking the exam alone, without the pressure of a time limit."

"Wha— They have that option? Then how come Rimmer never did that before?"

"Self-deluded? Ashamed to admit his condition and ask for special treatment? Or, it could just be he didn't know about it. Take your best guess."

"What made him ask for it this time, then?"

"He didn't. It was the Captain who set it up."

Lister shook his head. "This doesn't make sense, Hol. The Captain hates Rimmer. Why would he want to promote him to work in the Drive Room with him? An' when did the smeghead even get a chance to study? You know Rimmer, Hol. He couldn't pass water unprepared, let alone an exam."

"If you recall, Dave, Arnold was given probation by the Captain three months after your encounter with the _SSS Silverburg_, where you met that computer, Cassandra, who could predict the future. It was the same week he granted Kochanski her pardon and let her return to work at navigation."

Lister nodded. "Yeah, I remember. They decided to split us up after that little incident with the dinosaurs. Kris and Rimmer got to go back to work, and Cat, Kryten and me had to stay in prison another five months, until the Captain figured out what to do with us."

"Right," Holly said. "And during those five months, Kris and Arnold met in her quarters every night—"

"What!"

"Where she very patiently tutored him in mathematics and astronavigation theory," Holly finished smugly. Lister, who had jumped to his feet in outrage, sank back down to his chair.

"So that's what that message was about!" Lister said.

"Message?"

"Yeah, man. Back while I was still in prison. It was weird. Rimmer was, like, all nervous an' that, askin' if it was OK with me if he saw Kochanski. I told him to smeg off. Though, if I'd known then how much she'd let herself go since she got out of the Tank, I just might have told him to go for it."

"What d'you mean?" Holly asked.

"Have you looked at her lately, Hol? She's a whale! It's like, every time I see her now, she's eatin' something. Last week I caught her scarfin' ice cream straight out of the tub. An' she used to call _me_ disgustin'."

"Oh," Holly said.

"It's all that prison food, I betcha. They fed us that slop for so long, now she's out, she's probably gone a little insane. It'll pass."

"Hm," said Holly. "I give it about another hour or two. Could be more. Hard to predict these things, 'specially with twins."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing, Dave. Anyway, like I said, the letter's genuine. Arnold's been promoted to lieutenant, a navigation officer fourth class, and he'll be movin' out of these quarters an' up to the Officers' Block by the end of the week. See you 'round."

"Wait, Holly. Hol!"

Lister tapped the watch, but the screen remained blank. He sighed deeply and ran a hand over his hair.

"So. He really did it. Three million years on, and the jammy smegger's finally become an officer."

And what about me? Lister couldn't help thinking. Now Rimmer's movin' out, climbing that ziggurat of his, what's gonna happen to me? With the crew back, I'm just a lowly third technician again. Cat's a disk jockey, Kryten's with the cleaning crew, Rimmer will be up at navigation with Kris. They're all leavin' me behind. Three million years out in deep space, I don't even have me plan anymore...

He sighed again and glanced over at his favorite photograph, a snapshot of him and Kochanski back on _Starbug_. She had her arm around him and was smiling that heart-stoppingly gorgeous pinball smile of hers. The one that made her eyes light up like the winning lights on an old-style pinball machine.

Well, he thought, she may be spending her afternoons porking her way through the food supplies, but at least he still had Krissie.

_To Be Continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

Yay, thanks! :) This is a complete story, so I'll be putting the chapters up pretty fast. I hope you enjoy this next part!_  
><em>

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><p><em>'At least he still had Krissie.' <em>

_The words sounded as cold and hollow as the clang of his hammer on the drive plate. He'd never had Krissie. He knew that now. Their relationship had never existed, except in his head. He'd never get a chance at winning her heart, especially not after what had happened in the medical unit that day…_

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><p>Rimmer appeared at the door to their quarters and just stood there, his leg jiggling as if it longed to separate from the rest of him and hop back the way it had come.<p>

Lister looked up from his magazine. "What's up? You've been gone all day, man," he said. "Now you're an Officer, I thought you'd be comin' back here trailin' a huge brass band or somethin'. But you look like a man about to face a firing squad."

Rimmer's jaw worked, but no sounds came out. He straightened his shoulders and marched to the table, where he stiffly took the seat across from Lister.

"Seriously, what is it, man?" Lister asked. "Did you find out that letter was a prank after all?"

Rimmer shook his head. "No. No, Lister… Do you remember when we met that computer, Cassandra? The one who could predict the future?"

"Yeah. Nine months ago, on that ocean moon. What of it?"

"Nine months. Yes. And, you remember that prediction she made. About me and Kris?"

Lister waved that away. "She was takin' the smeg. It's like I told you then; she knew I was going to kill her, so sayin' you and Krissie were goin' to get it together was her way of punishin' me."

Rimmer swallowed. "Yes. Well. She was right."

"Come off it, man. It's two minutes to midnight. April Fools Day's over."

"I mean it, Lister. Her prediction was true. Kris and me… Well, we did. Then. And since. And...I asked her tonight. And she said yes."

"Could you possibly make a bit less sense, Rimmer?"

Rimmer was getting angry now. He looked him straight in the eye, as serious as Lister had ever seen him.

"We're getting married," he said bluntly. "Our twins were born today, and I asked Kris to marry me. The ceremony's next month, a week before the christening—Captain presiding, of course. And…if you wouldn't mind…I'd like to ask you to be my best man. If you don't want to, I'll understand, and I'll ask the Cat or Kryten. But, both Kris and I would like it to be you."

Lister's brain refused to compute any of those words. They came out all jumbled and strange, like a warped recording of an audio book. "Sorry, man," he said. "I must be losin' it. I thought you said you and Krissie are gettin' married."

"We are."

"An' you have twins?"

"We do, as of this afternoon. Amy and Allison. That's where I've been all day. With Kris."

"You're pullin' my leg, man."

"I knew you'd be like this," Rimmer said, getting to his feet and gesturing for him to follow. "Come on, get up. Kris wants to talk with you."

_To Be Continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

_Lister put down his hammer and picked up his blowtorch again, smoothing out any particularly harsh dings and dents that might get noticed in the morning. As he worked, memories filled the space around him, threatening to steal his concentration..._

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><p><em>It had all started some two years before, <em>on a CANARY mission<em>. Back then, Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, Kochanski, and the Cat had all been part of _Red Dwarf_'s convict army, serving out a sentence for misusing private personnel files during the trial they'd had to sit through after returning to _Red Dwarf_. _

_Before the nanobots resurrected the crew, Lister, Kryten, Cat and Kochanski had been alone in space, trapped in a ship-to-surface transport vehicle called _Starbug_, while they searched the vast cosmos for the missing _Red Dwarf_. Believing they'd stolen _Starbug_ and were lying about their experiences in space, the Captain had forced the four of them to stand trial, ultimately finding them innocent of theft, but guilty of misusing personnel files to bribe Rimmer, Lister's resurrected bunkmate, into helping them escape. The result was the five of them had been convicted and sentenced to serve two years in the brig, where Lister had signed them up for the CANARY convict army, mistakenly believing it to be an a capella group._

_Their first real mission was to a derelict craft stranded at the bottom of a lifeless ocean. There, they had met Cassandra, a computer who claimed the ability to predict the future with one hundred percent accuracy. They had tested her, and time and again her predictions had turned out right. One of her predictions, however, had been Rimmer's death._

_"_Lister catches you making love to Kochanski and shoots you through the head with a harpoon gun,_" she'd told him._

_Kochanski had been horrified by the prospect of being seduced by predetermination theory. She'd been brought up in another dimension, in a world of upper class wealth and privilege, where everything she'd ever desired had eventually been granted. When she'd joined _Red Dwarf_ as Navigation Officer, the male officers had all but thrown themselves at her...as did one grungy little grease-monkey from the lower decks—a man who'd been irresponsible enough to bring an unquarantined cat aboard the ship, then show it off to her. _

_As an officer, her duty had been clear. She had to confiscate the animal and bring it to the medical bay to be destroyed. But, she couldn't. She'd hidden the cat and accepted the consequences of her actions—six months in stasis with no wages and an official reprimand blotting her otherwise stellar record._

_She'd woken up three million years later to discover the crew was dead, the descendants of Lister's cat had evolved into an intelligent, humanoid life form, and Dave Lister, the idiot grease-monkey himself, had been brought back as a hologram to keep her sane._

_Over the years, she'd grown quite fond of her Dave. Being a hologram changed him, forced him to mature, to grow as a person. By the time she was ripped away by the accident that had left her stranded on _Starbug_ with the grungy, uncouth, living Lister, she and her Dave had fallen quite deeply in love. They had even been contemplating the possibilities of a family.  
><em>

_Losing her Dave had been hard, quite the worst thing she'd ever lived through. The Lister she ended up stuck with was barely a shadow of the man she'd known, a shallow, deluded look-alike who harbored a childish fantasy about dragging her off to Fiji like some caveman. He didn't even know her, he just kept this romantic image of her locked in his head and trusted that, one day, she'd miraculously fall for him. Hardly likely when he spent all his time eating volcano-hot curries and goading his reluctant bunkmate, Rimmer, into playing ever more elaborate pranks on the prison guards._

_Kochanski had never known Rimmer all that well, but from what she could tell he was like the antithesis of Lister. He was tidy, goal-oriented, career-minded. But, he was also an unsettlingly nervous, anal-retentive, emotionally-repressed, irritatingly bureaucratic, undeservedly pompous smeghead and an enormous physical coward. In all the time they'd spent together since their imprisonment, she hadn't thought to look at him twice. He was just an addendum to Lister, the flip side of his irksome coin._

_Then, the hull of the _SSS Silverburg _ gave way and Kochanski and Rimmer found they'd been trapped alone together in the ship's old laundry room__—alone together for what was, really, the first time. And she found, to her surprise, that without Lister around to prod and provoke him, he wasn't quite as awful as she'd thought he was. He was awful—hopping around on the mattress and generally behaving like a socially backwards adolescent who didn't have clue one about how to talk to a woman, let alone how to behave around one in a potentially romantic situation. But, in a way, his total inept naiveté was somehow, somewhat, oddly…endearing._

_Lister had told her about the holographic Rimmer he'd known leaving _Starbug_ to become a sort of inter-dimensional superhero called Ace. _

_In retrospect, that had been a bad idea._

_Because it was then, as she watched the clueless fool search out blankets and pillows from the airtight storage lockers at the far end of the room, that the thought initially occurred to her: if the hologram version of Rimmer could transform himself into a man like Ace, why couldn't the living one?  
><em>

_Kochanski had regarded Rimmer as he meticulously arranged the bedding he'd found, smoothing the blanket and propping the pillows 'just so.' _He was annoying, true, but he wasn't actually stupid. He was ignorant, which was different, and he wanted to change. He wanted to become something better than what he was. _If she could teach him some social skills, show him how to behave…then maybe…just maybe…_

_That's when she saw it. Potential. The potential to be infinitely more than the frustrated nothing that he was. It may or may not have been there at the time, but in her eyes, for that one moment, the desperately pathetic little man practically glowed with it. And that was enough to make her close her eyes, step forward, and give fate a chance._

_The next six minutes were clumsy and silly and a little embarrassing. Forty seconds in, he'd been forced to admit he'd only been with a non-inflatable woman once, and she'd had to take over. But, the very fact that she did keep going instead of laughing at him or turning away in disgust provoked a peculiar change in Rimmer. Underneath all that neurotic mess, buried beneath layers of thick, protective shielding, she caught her first glimpse of a sensitive person; a nascent Ace who deserved a chance to grow._

_Whatever she'd glimpsed had been so fragile, so trusting, like a blind newborn bunny nosing her palm for protection and warmth. __It was sobering to stumble upon such an enormous responsibility in such an awkward, unplanned moment, but__ she couldn't let it be swallowed up, not again. She'd coaxed it out of its defensive cage, now she had to encourage it, nurture it, help it grow strong enough to defeat whatever inner demons had twisted this strange, sad man into the bitter, weasely creature he'd become. _

_It would be difficult. Some might say, impossible. But, it was a challenge she knew she was up to. After all, she'd managed to mold her Dave into the man of her dreams. If she could get him alone, convince the Captain to split him and Lister up, she could train him, teach him, deconstruct and rebuild him into the sort of man she could fall in love with...just as she had with her Dave. And, unlike Lister, who was convinced of his own desirability, Rimmer, with his surprising lack of self-esteem, would probably be willing enough to go along with it._

_Lister had walked in on the two of them four minutes later, long after their tumble was over. She'd wrapped herself in a blanket, and Rimmer sat beside her in his T-shirt and shorts, his expression open and vulnerable as he confessed to her his fear of dying and his dread of ending up replaced by a holographic ghost, like his predecessor._

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><p>"Thank you, for being with me tonight," he was telling her quietly. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend my final hour with than you, and I really mean that."<p>

"No need to worry, smeghead," Lister spoke up from the doorway, harpoon gun leveled playfully at his head. "I'm not gonna kill you."

"Hey," Kochanski teased, relieved a rescue had come for them. "Why aren't you mad that I'm in bed with him?"

Lister smirked. "'Cause I know why you're in bed with him. And I also know that I don't kill him. Cassandra made everything up to force you two together. So that you'd feel sorry for him, and hopefully end up sleeping with him." He chucked at the thought. Rimmer and Kochanski shared a look.

"So why did she say she saw you shoot me?" Rimmer asked

"To try and make it happen," Lister explained. "To try and punish me by makin' me take a life! You see, Cassandra knows, and has always known, how she dies. She's trying to make me suffer now for something that I'm destined to do in the future."

Rimmer straightened. "You kill her, don't you? That's why she hates you. Because she knows you're going to kill her."

Lister nodded. "That's what this whole thing was about. Kryten figured it out. Now, I'm going to take care of the rest of it." He patted his harpoon gun, and winked. "I'll, erm, see you two lovebirds later."

_To Be Continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

_A few weeks after their fumbling liaison on the _Silverburg_, Kochanski pulled Rimmer aside and gave him the news about the twins. He hadn't been sure quite how to react, until she'd told him she wanted to keep the babies. The look on his face had been pure elation, and she'd melted at the sight of it. From that day on, she made it her mission to help him achieve his dream of bettering himself. Together, they backtracked through his school years, filling in gaps wherever they found them. And they found a lot. Rimmer's upbringing had taught him asking questions was a sign of weakness. If he didn't understand a subject the first time, it meant he was too boneheaded to be taught. Kochanski assured him otherwise, and helped him learn that knowledge wasn't about memorizing facts, it was about understanding concepts. Once he'd caught onto the idea that learning a subject was like telling a story, like the strategic war campaign accounts and supply-line/communications statistics he loved so dearly, he'd progressed in leaps and bounds._

_It wasn't all smooth sailing. Rewiring the bad habits of a lifetime was a sensitive process, and tempers often flared. Rimmer soon learned, however, that the rewards she offered for achievement were infinitely preferable to whatever satisfaction he derived from a flare up of stubborn pride._

_In the end, their hard work paid off. Kochanski spoke to the Captain, told him of her condition and her plans for Rimmer and herself. The Captain had been dubious at first, but he'd had more than enough of Lister and Rimmer's antics down in the Tank and agreed to give Kochanski's scheme a chance. He granted her a pardon and put Rimmer on probation under her supervision. Several months later, she convinced him to let Rimmer take another crack at the astronavigation exam, this time in accordance with the proper Space Corps Directives._

_As the exam approached, Rimmer's nerves grew until he almost suffered a complete relapse back to his old, neurotic self. He disappeared for a full day, only reappearing an hour before the exam was scheduled to start, dressed in his best technician's jumpsuit, and admitting he'd spent the day cowering in the library. Kochanski had kissed him, and he'd marched in to meet his challenge._

_For the first time, he found it was a challenge he could actually meet. After scribbling down a brief outline for each question like she'd told him, just in case he panicked and forgot what he'd learned, he found, to his surprise, that he'd calmed down enough to think, really think, about the answers. Without the pressure of a time limit, or the sight of other test takers to cause him to second guess his own progress, his pencil flew, the words and equations he'd studied for so long seemed to pour out of his head. Four and a half hours later, he delivered a neatly printed eight page stack of papers to the proctor with a triumphant grin. He didn't know whether he'd passed or not, but he'd answered every question to the best of his ability, and he'd managed to finish with barely a twinge of his usual crippling panic._

_That night, he and Kochanski had gone out to celebrate, and he had never felt so happy, so worthwhile, or so self-assured. Her plan had worked. His demons were sounding the retreat. And there, over an expensive dinner and a chilled bottle of sparkling, non-alcoholic cider, Kochanski and Rimmer fell in love._

_The last time Lister had seen Kochanski and Rimmer had been two weeks ago. He'd been fixing a vending machine in the corridor outside their quarters up on the officers' deck when the door had slid open. Kochanski had come out, uniform pressed, hair up, ready for work. Lister had smiled a greeting, but she'd barely noticed him there, her attention fixed on the man standing just inside the room, apron tied over his casual shirt and slacks and a wide-eyed baby with frizzy hair and a pinball smile cuddled in his arms. As Lister had watched, Kochanski had tickled the little girl's cheek, then leaned close to her husband for a tender, lingering kiss—a horrific sight that caused Lister's insides to writhe and squirm in revulsion._

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><p>"You'll be back home at five, then?" Rimmer said once they finally came up for air.<p>

"On the dot," she assured him. "Is it Chen's Diner, or did you want to try that new Chinese place?"

"I'm feeling adventurous," he said. "Let's go for Chinese. Kryten's said he'll be only too happy to stay with the twins for as long as we need. I know I'm not much good at dancing, but if you'd like to stop by the officer's club after, you might be able to coax me into giving you a few twirls 'round the floor."

He winked, and Lister heaved a dry retch inside the vending machine.

Unaware, Kochanski smiled her beautiful, pinball smile and kissed Rimmer again. "I'm so proud of you, Arnie," she said. "You've come such a long way in a year. You really deserve this promotion." She leaned in close until their noses practically touched. "Lieutenant Arnold Rimmer, Navigation Officer Third Class."

"I could never have made it without you, my darling," he said, his expression softening as he stared into her eyes. "Tonight is your celebration, as much as it is mine. But you'd better be off. Don't want to be late for morning shift."

"Right. Until five, then. Have a good day, love."

"And you, my darling."

They waved and smiled and finally parted, Kochanski striding up the corridor away from Lister, Rimmer disappearing back into their quarters without so much as a nod in his direction. For that moment, Dave Lister might as well not have even existed.

It had been a year, and he still couldn't believe it. Rimmer. She'd chosen Rimmer. The one woman he'd ever truly loved, ever actually imagined settling down with, building a future with, and she'd turned him down for an uptight, custard-hearted, nasal-voiced smeghead with hair like a used Brillo pad and ears that stuck out from his head like two warped satellite dishes. Not only that, she'd _procreated_ with him. They had _offspring._ Two tiny people, half Rimmer, half Kochanski, now lived on the ship, eating, breathing, sleeping, laughing. It was disgusting. An offense against nature.

Kochanski may have kept her name, but in his mind she'd become Mrs. Rimmer. Mrs. Arnold Judas Rimmer.

Had anyone ever been more aptly named?

He was still reeling from all he'd seen when the doors slid open again and Rimmer's ferrety head poked out.

"Lister?"

Lister grunted. A huge grin split his old cell mate's face and he stepped out into the corridor. "Dave Lister! It is you, me old mate. I thought I'd noticed your hamster-like figure skulking in the shadows. What are you doing up here in Officer's territory?"

"Might ask you the same question," he muttered, but Rimmer didn't seem to hear. The wretched Judas was smiling at him, really smiling, as if happy to see an old friend.

"Why don't you come in, have a visit? No curry, I'm afraid, but I've got some coffee going, and I'm sure the twins won't mind if we steal a few biscuits."

Lister made a face, but he shrugged and slouched across the hall.

"God, what's happened to you, man," he said as he stepped into the big, bright, cluttered room. He was wearing a fresh-pressed uniform, but against all the clean whiteness and vivid color, he suddenly felt like a grungy rag off a shuttle-hanger floor. "Look at all this: bouncy swings, blocks and toys, that apron— Is this your life, now? You sit at home with the kids and make coffee while Mr. Rimmer goes to work?"

Rimmer laughed as he brought a pair of steaming mugs in from the kitchen area, and again Lister was taken aback by how genuine it was.

"Only part time, Listy," he said, handing him his coffee and gesturing for him to take a seat at the table. "_Red Dwarf_ has a full ship's compliment, you remember, and there's no real need for two navigation officers. So, Kris and I decided to take it in turns. She works one week, I work the next, we get double the pay credits and we both get equal time with the kids."

He turned a fond glance toward the two little girls playing happily among their plush toys and blocks. Lister's expression remained flat.

Twins. He had twin girls, Amy and Allison, nearly one year old. Married to Kristine Kochanski. Recently promoted to Navigation Officer, Third Class.

It was _his_ dream, _his_ life, only all turned around and backwards. Somehow, somewhere along the line, that back-stabbing Judas, Rimmer, had conspired to steal his life, and he'd screwed with it to fit his own weasely ambitions. It was all Lister could do not to dive at the man and tear him to pieces right in front of his giggling, big-eared, frizzy-headed progeny.

"So, you like bein' a father, then," he muttered into his mug.

"Not a 'father,' Listy," Rimmer corrected firmly. "I had a 'father.' I want to be a 'dad' to my girls. A proper parent. A friend they can tell their troubles to, who'll help them with their problems. Not banish them to boarding school and starve them during the holidays if they can't answer astronavigation questions correctly at supper."

Lister rolled his eyes. He couldn't take much more of this. "Yeah. Whatever, man. You know, I'm actually on duty now, so—"

Rimmer rose at once. "Oh, of course, of course!" he said. "You're shift supervisor, after all. Have to set an example for the team!" He beamed, and Lister glared.

_To Be Concluded..._


	6. Chapter 6

_It was incomprehensible. Arnold J. Rimmer was a Success, a success in his career, in his personal life, and evolutionarily. Even if the smug bastard blew up tomorrow, his genes would live on in his children, while Lister languished in the lower decks, pretending not to care that his despised bunkmate had not only married, but _procreated_ with the only woman he'd ever truly loved. _

_How had it all come to this?_

_ Well, he knew how it had happened. He even knew why. And that was the agony of it. The aching, bitter agony. Because the truth was—if Lister was to be openly, brutally honest with himself—the raw, bare, hollowed out truth of the matter was…he couldn't blame either of them._

_Lister's hand tightened around his screwdriver as he loosened the access panel on the engineering control board, aiming to disconnect the red light that warned the crew of a radiation leak. _

_No. No, there was no way he could have prevented this. This was out and out backstabbing betrayal, practically Shakespearean in its devious depths, as Kochanski herself might have said. Krissie knew full well how he felt about her—he'd told her enough times. And Rimmer—_

_It was Rimmer's fault he'd been given that promotion to second technician. He'd been fine slouching at the bottom rung, no responsibility to anyone. Then Lieutenant Smeghead Rimmer had stepped in with the suggestion Lister be given his old job as head of Z Shift. The Captain had agreed and Lister found himself forced to take roll call every morning and keep track of maintenance logs, crew complaints, and a host of other tedious, bureaucratic nonsense. Rimmer had acted like he was passing on some great legacy, but really it was a nothing position and Lister and the Captain both knew it._

_Still, it hadn't been too bad at first. He'd played the role of Rimmer's best man at the wedding as Kochanski wanted, laughing to himself when Rimmer leaned in with an awkward little peck of a kiss at the end of the ceremony, his pasty complexion flushing beet red when she snogged him back. That was the kind of man she was getting. If it had been Lister standing there, he'd have taken the opportunity to show all the guests just how lucky he was to be kissing Kristine Kochanski. It was her loss, man. Her loss._

_Over the next few days, he felt he'd gotten over the worst of his dejection and was starting to get used to the idea of Rimmer and Kochanski being together, and being happy. Being head of Z Shift was a joke, but he did get some satisfaction out of knowing he was doing a better job with it than Rimmer had ever done. His technicians liked him. They socialized together in the evenings, went out drinking and partying in the pubs and clubs. It was a good feeling knowing he was in charge, and he was popular. But, somehow, it wasn't enough._

_As the weeks went on, Lister began to grow dissatisfied. The empty bunk below his seemed to mock him. Rimmer had moved up from the lower decks, why couldn't he? _

_Slowly, the seed of an ambition began to take root in Lister's heart, the ambition to pass the officer's exam and prove to Krissie that he wasn't the bum she thought he was. He was a winner, a somebody. He'd become an officer and find himself the best-looking, most intelligent woman on the ship and show that two-faced Mrs. Judas exactly what she was missing. And wouldn't that be sweet._

_The very next evening, Lister turned down his team's invitation to go out drinking and stayed in his room, where he sat at Rimmer's slanted architect desk and poured through a well-thumbed astronavigation textbook under Rimmer's pink student lamp. _

_It was a singularly frustrating experience. The words in the textbook appeared to be written in English, but strung together the way they were, they didn't make any logical sense. The equations were long and filled with peculiar squiggles and symbols Lister had never seen before. And yet, somehow, Rimmer had managed to cram enough of this crap into his weasel brain to come out an officer. Well, if he could do it, Lister could do it better. It was only a matter of time._

_Six weeks later, Lister sat for the astronavigation exam. He hadn't leaned much from his evenings of stubborn revision, but he figured he could BS his way through as he'd often done in school._

_He'd failed._

_So, he'd redoubled his efforts. He told himself he'd failed because he didn't take the test seriously. This time, he'd do better because he'd tackle his revision in an organized, professional, adult way like an organized, professional, adult person. The type of person Krissie admired._

_He cleaned up his act, quit smoking and drinking, reorganized his shift with an eye toward increased efficiency and started making up timetables detailing their duties and break times. He also made up a revision timetable for himself. Six weeks later, he strode confidently into the exam room._

_And failed again._

_It was getting ridiculous now, and a little frightening. He'd done nothing but pour through textbooks for months on end, and still he'd failed. _

_So, he hit the books again, this time with a single-minded determination that could put an obsessed bounty hunter with a grudge to shame. His friends abandoned him, he became short-tempered with his team over petty details. People he didn't even know started calling him 'smeghead' to his face._

_One night, well after 2 a.m., Lister looked up from his revision and got a shock. Rimmer was sitting at his old desk under his student's pink light, reading a book. Lister stood up in surprise, about to ask what the smeg he thought he was doing there, when he realized what had happened._

_That hadn't been Rimmer he'd seen. It had been a mirror. The man at the desk in the overstarched uniform, drowning in textbooks and looseleaf notes…was himself._

_And then, it all came clear. Cassandra, Kochanski, Rimmer, everything. His frayed, overtired brain snapped in the middle, and the whole, sordid picture came into focus._

_This was Cassandra's revenge. She'd seen it. She'd planned it. She'd caused it to happen. To get back at Lister for killing her, that devious computer had arranged for Lister and Rimmer to swap places, to swap lives. Rimmer got Kochanski, the children, the life he'd always dreamed of, while Lister…_

_Lister had become a failure. A pompous, trumped up smeghead with no friends, no prospects, no girlfriend. He couldn't even pin his shortcomings on his parents, as Rimmer always had, because he didn't have any parents. There was no way around it, no one else to blame._

_Except Cassandra._

_It was no coincidence Rimmer had been promoted on April Fools Day, no mere chance that, before the day was done, his twins had been born and Kochanski had accepted his proposal of marriage. It was Cassandra's way of rubbing it in, of sending Lister a message direct from Silicon Hell._

_Well, he wouldn't let her get away with it._

* * *

><p>Lister closed the access panel, put away his tools, and headed for the lift that would take him down to the stasis pods. Another three million years in deep space. Another eternity frozen in time. The re-built <em>Red Dwarf<em> version of Holly would let him out of stasis once the radiation levels cleared. Cat would be gone, and Kryten too, most likely. Everyone he'd ever known or cared about would be dead. But he would survive. And someday, somehow, he'd find her again. His Kochanski, not that faithless copy. Together, they'd find their way back to Earth. And then, they'd have their happily ever after, just as it always should have been.

The stasis door was closing when Lister's Holly watch came to sudden life.

"Oh, right!" the senile computer said. "It's April Fool's Day again! I meant to tell you all last year, but I guess I forgot. Or, was it the year before...?"

"Forgot what, Hol?" Lister asked impatiently, using his polished boot to keep the door from closing all the way. "An' make it quick."

"You know that computer that told the future?"

"Cassandra, yeah. What about her?"

"Well, there was no Cassandra," he said. "I made her up, her an all those prophesies, jus' like I made up Queeg, remember?"

Lister blinked.

"Yeah," Holly rambled on, oblivious to the strange look creeping into Lister's eyes. "I'd been racking my brains for years tryin' to outdo that gag until I spotted that abandoned ship. It wasn't the future I told, it was all jus' supposition and the power of suggestion. I even printed out that false mission directive an' everything. Pretty good wheeze, mate, don't you think? The way people can hear a 'prophesy' and make it come true all on their own?"

Lister stared out into the dim blankness of the corridor for a long, silent moment. Then, calmly, he unstrapped Holly's watch from his wrist and tossed it away. A second later, the door closed completely, with Lister sealed safely inside.

"Well, I thought it was funny," Holly said.

**The End**

**_If you're reading this, I'd really appreciate a word or two to let me know what you thought of my story! Comments, opinions, and constructive criticism are always welcome. :)_  
><strong>


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